On this day, fifty years ago, I was in a car-pool, commuting daily from our home in Galway city to teach at a school 30 miles away in County Galway. Arrangements had already been made, by pleasant mutual agreement, that I would leave the school and move full-time into evangelism and discipling at Galway University. That would start on 1st December. The November days felt long. I was motivated by reminding myself that by the time the leaves had fallen from the trees on that country road, the month’s 30 days would be over.

I even chose a particular tree that we drove past every day. Inside my head I said, ‘When that last leaf falls, I will be a full-time servant of the gospel’. (Of course, Pam had made a fulltime commitment some years before when she came to Ireland as a missionary).

On Friday 30th November 1973 the last leaf fell. And did my dreams come true on Saturday? Yes! And we haven’t looked back since. There were, of course, implications.

Implications

…for Mountbellew: Sometimes I wondered about the students I had left behind in the school – there would be no-one there to be an example of Christian life. But I was wrong! Once Facebook got going, a recent staff member at the college contacted me to say that he was a believer teaching in the school. I’m sure he worked there with a more consistent testimony than I could have maintained.

…Financial implications: I soon went to see friends who could be ‘fellow travellers’ with Pam and me by being personal sponsors. That was an education. I learned that finance is a matter of the heart, especially when it comes to the support of missionaries. I didn’t find major financiers – but I did find people who felt vicariously involved in our work, people with heart. I wasn’t aiming at excessive frugality – they weren’t looking for that. They simply allowed us to get to work without having to look over our shoulder. Some of them still support us fifty years later.

…Apologetics implications: At first, when students asked me about how we made a living, my inclination was to say, ‘Don’t you worry about that – let’s talk about the gospel’. Before long I discovered that our full-time commitment was a testimony in itself. Our newly-met university friends thought (and sometimes said), ‘This guy’s serious. What makes a person take this kind of radical step? There must be something to this “trusting Jesus” thing’. One of those friends who had previously told me to ‘get a proper job’ changed his mind.

We met up again after he graduated and joined the college administration. As we chatted one day, I mentioned that one of our Cambodian (Agapé) team (Vek Houng Tang) had just arrived in the Khao i Dang refugee centre in Thailand, after living from hand to mouth under the Pol Pot regime. Huong’s first question was, ‘Are we still doing the Great Commission?’

My admin friend’s comment: ‘I’d give anything to have your job’.